Metamorphoses
of International Adjudication
Metamorphoses
of International Adjudication
International Conference
Moscow, September 18-19, 2026
Moscow, September 18-19, 2026
Justice, from the ‘Stanza della Segnatura’ (1509 – 1511) by Raphael
- OrganisersСenter for Constitutional Studies with the support of the International and Comparative Law Research Center (ICLRC).
Information support – scientific journals INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE and COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW.
Sponsors: Law firm "Monastyrsky, Zyuba, Stepanov & Partners (MZS)"; Brevia Legal - Organizing CommitteeMaksim Likhachev, PhD in Law; Ksenia Shestakova, PhD in Public International Lawy; Kirill Entin, PhD in Law; Maria Filatova, PhD in Law; Dmitry Krasikov, PhD in Law; Ilya Lifshits, Doctor of Sciences in Law; Andrey Lunev, PhD in Law; Sofya Pimenova, PhD in Law; Sergey Punzhin, PhD in Law; Ilya Rachkov, PhD in Law; Anita Soboleva, PhD in Linguistics; Aleksandr Solntsev, PhD in Law; Elena Sychenko, PhD in Law; Vladislav Tolstykh, Doctor of Sciences in Law; Marina Trunk-Fedorova, PhD in Law; Polina Yataeva; Olga Sidorovich.
- Date and place of the eventSeptember 18-19, 2026 (hybrid format).
14 bldg. 3 Kadashevskaya Embankment, Moscow, Russia.
ICLRC Library - LanguageRussian and English
Registration of participants is open via the link until September 14, 2026.
The conference marks the fifteenth anniversary of International Justice (Mezhdunarodnoe pravosudie), the first Russian-language journal devoted exclusively to international courts and international adjudication, and one of the leading academic journals in international law published in Russian. The Journal is an independent non-state academic publication. Over fifteen years it has published 58 issues and more than 620 articles, case notes, commentaries, translations and other materials by over 260 scholars and practitioners, including judges and lawyers working with international and domestic judicial institutions.
The Journal is included in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, registers publication DOIs through Crossref, and is included in the Russian Higher Attestation Commission list and the national 'Whitelist' of academic journals.
As a result of the conference, publications will be prepared in the journals “International Justice” and “Comparative Constitutional Review” .
Over the past fifteen years, not only the number of international courts and tribunals but also the place of adjudication within international law has changed. The subject matter of international litigation has expanded, new categories of participants have gained access to proceedings, advisory proceedings and provisional measures have acquired greater importance, and the same legal questions increasingly arise before international, regional integration and domestic courts.
At the same time, debates about the limits of the judicial function, difficulties with compliance, and tensions between adjudication and diplomatic or other peaceful means of settling international disputes have become more visible. The conference therefore considers a double movement: the expanded reach and ambition of international adjudication, and the growing contestation of its authority, limits and practical effectiveness.
International adjudication does not form a single judicial system. Interstate courts, human rights bodies, investment tribunals, regional integration courts and domestic courts applying international law derive their authority from different legal foundations, follow different procedures and provide access to different categories of participants. They do not, however, operate in isolation. Legal arguments, interpretive approaches and procedural solutions travel across jurisdictions and contribute to mutual influence and judicial cross-fertilization.
The conference approaches international adjudication simultaneously as a means of resolving concrete disputes, a means of clarifying and developing international law, and an institutional practice whose authority depends on consent, the quality of legal reasoning, procedural fairness, the support of relevant legal and political constituencies, and the practical effect of decisions.
The Journal is included in the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI) and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, registers publication DOIs through Crossref, and is included in the Russian Higher Attestation Commission list and the national 'Whitelist' of academic journals.
As a result of the conference, publications will be prepared in the journals “International Justice” and “Comparative Constitutional Review” .
Over the past fifteen years, not only the number of international courts and tribunals but also the place of adjudication within international law has changed. The subject matter of international litigation has expanded, new categories of participants have gained access to proceedings, advisory proceedings and provisional measures have acquired greater importance, and the same legal questions increasingly arise before international, regional integration and domestic courts.
At the same time, debates about the limits of the judicial function, difficulties with compliance, and tensions between adjudication and diplomatic or other peaceful means of settling international disputes have become more visible. The conference therefore considers a double movement: the expanded reach and ambition of international adjudication, and the growing contestation of its authority, limits and practical effectiveness.
International adjudication does not form a single judicial system. Interstate courts, human rights bodies, investment tribunals, regional integration courts and domestic courts applying international law derive their authority from different legal foundations, follow different procedures and provide access to different categories of participants. They do not, however, operate in isolation. Legal arguments, interpretive approaches and procedural solutions travel across jurisdictions and contribute to mutual influence and judicial cross-fertilization.
The conference approaches international adjudication simultaneously as a means of resolving concrete disputes, a means of clarifying and developing international law, and an institutional practice whose authority depends on consent, the quality of legal reasoning, procedural fairness, the support of relevant legal and political constituencies, and the practical effect of decisions.
PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
Advisory proceedings are increasingly used to clarify legal questions of global and regional importance. Unlike contentious proceedings, they do not result in a judgment determining the rights and obligations of specific parties, yet their legal effect cannot be reduced to a single formula of a 'non-binding opinion'. Their authority depends on the constituent instrument of the court, the character of the question submitted, the procedure followed and the subsequent use of the opinion by States, international organisations and domestic courts.
Recent climate advisory proceedings have illustrated both the potential and the difficulties of the advisory function: questions of consent and absent contentious jurisdiction, broad participation by States and other actors, scientific complexity, and parallel recourse to several courts and tribunals.
Questions for discussion:
Recent climate advisory proceedings have illustrated both the potential and the difficulties of the advisory function: questions of consent and absent contentious jurisdiction, broad participation by States and other actors, scientific complexity, and parallel recourse to several courts and tribunals.
Questions for discussion:
- Does the advisory function broaden access to international law or weaken the role of consent to jurisdiction?
- How should authoritative clarification of existing law be distinguished from judicial development of the law?
- How can representativeness, procedural fairness and the treatment of scientific evidence be secured in advisory proceedings?
- Do advisory opinions of different courts produce dialogue, convergence or competition?
- How do advisory opinions influence negotiations, subsequent contentious proceedings and domestic legal practice?
Courts of regional integration organizations have proliferated across different regions. The Court of Justice of the European Union has often served as an important reference point, but political conditions, regional legal traditions and institutional design have produced substantial differences in jurisdiction, procedure, and judicial technique.
These courts share a concern with the effectiveness and uniform application of integration law, while some have also developed significant human-rights functions. The session will focus not simply on formal instruments available to the courts, but on judicial practice through which they seek to secure effectiveness, address institutional gaps and structure relations with domestic courts.
Questions for discussion:
These courts share a concern with the effectiveness and uniform application of integration law, while some have also developed significant human-rights functions. The session will focus not simply on formal instruments available to the courts, but on judicial practice through which they seek to secure effectiveness, address institutional gaps and structure relations with domestic courts.
Questions for discussion:
- How do integration courts combine respectful dialogue with domestic courts and the need to secure the effectiveness of integration law?
- Why have some courts originally created for economic integration developed substantial human-rights functions?
- To what extent do regional integration courts borrow concepts and techniques from the CJEU, and where do they develop distinct approaches?
- How do integration courts respond to gaps or constraints in the institutional structures within which they operate?
The “fifteen years” in the title refers primarily to the anniversary of the Journal and serves as an occasion to reflect on change; it does not confine speakers to developments since 2011. Many of the transformations that shape international adjudication today began much earlier, including the proliferation of international courts, the expansion of regional and specialised dispute-settlement mechanisms, and changing relationships between courts, States and international organisations.
The session will bring together different institutional and disciplinary perspectives to ask what has actually changed in international adjudication. Rather than offering a survey of recent case law, the discussion will consider the changing functions of international courts, the sources and limits of judicial authority, the different trajectories followed by formally similar institutions, and the forms of political and institutional resistance that courts may encounter. It will also ask whether contemporary resistance to international courts signals a crisis of adjudication or forms part of a longer process of defining and redefining the role and limits of international courts within the international legal order.
Questions for discussion:
The session will bring together different institutional and disciplinary perspectives to ask what has actually changed in international adjudication. Rather than offering a survey of recent case law, the discussion will consider the changing functions of international courts, the sources and limits of judicial authority, the different trajectories followed by formally similar institutions, and the forms of political and institutional resistance that courts may encounter. It will also ask whether contemporary resistance to international courts signals a crisis of adjudication or forms part of a longer process of defining and redefining the role and limits of international courts within the international legal order.
Questions for discussion:
- Which changes in international adjudication are genuinely systemic, and which are responses to particular political or institutional crises?
- How do international courts acquire and sustain authority, and how is that authority used by States, litigants, domestic courts and other constituencies?
- Why do formally similar international courts develop along different institutional trajectories?
- How do State consent and the adjudication of questions involving general or collective interests relate to one another?
- Does contemporary resistance or backlash sometimes itself indicate that a court has acquired meaningful authority?
- Are current challenges to international courts best understood as a crisis, or as part of an ongoing negotiation of their role and limits?
Domestic courts play a central role in the application of international law. They determine the place of treaties, customary rules, general principles, and decisions of international judicial and quasi-judicial bodies within domestic legal orders, and they mediate between international obligations and constitutional structures.
Different legal systems adopt different models of openness to international law, conciliatory interpretation and domestic implementation. At the same time, legal arguments circulate continuously between international and domestic courts, producing examples of influence and dialogue as well as resistance, divergence and competing interpretations.
Questions for discussion:
Different legal systems adopt different models of openness to international law, conciliatory interpretation and domestic implementation. At the same time, legal arguments circulate continuously between international and domestic courts, producing examples of influence and dialogue as well as resistance, divergence and competing interpretations.
Questions for discussion:
- How do domestic judges determine the place of different sources of international law within the national legal order?
- Under what conditions is international law applied directly, and when does it require legislative or judicial mediation?
- Where is the boundary between interpretation consistent with international law and judicial transformation of domestic law?
- When does reliance on constitutional identity, sovereignty or public order represent a legitimate legal limit, and when does it amount to disregard of an international obligation?
- How should domestic courts respond to conflicting decisions of international and foreign courts?
Reform of investor-State dispute settlement has been under discussion in UNCITRAL Working Group III since 2017. Work has advanced on the Code of Conduct and the Advisory Centre, while proposals concerning a multilateral investment court, an appellate mechanism and a multilateral instrument continue to develop. The emerging architecture may allow States to participate in different combinations of reform elements.
This raises questions about jurisdictional boundaries, interaction between arbitral and standing mechanisms, the relationship between appellate review and finality, consistency of decisions, parallel proceedings and enforcement under the ICSID and New York Convention regimes.
Questions for discussion:
This raises questions about jurisdictional boundaries, interaction between arbitral and standing mechanisms, the relationship between appellate review and finality, consistency of decisions, parallel proceedings and enforcement under the ICSID and New York Convention regimes.
Questions for discussion:
- How deeply does the reform alter the existing system, and which problems remain unresolved?
- How should disputes be handled where treaty parties participate differently in new mechanisms?
- How can appellate review be reconciled with the finality and enforcement of arbitral awards?
- What tools can promote consistency across arbitral, standing and appellate mechanisms?
- How can parallel proceedings and the risk of multiple recovery be coordinated?
- What participation strategies are available to States in a differentiated reform architecture?
The 2024 advisory opinion of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the 2025 advisory opinions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice have produced a new body of clarification concerning States’ climate obligations. The next phase of climate litigation is likely to focus less on establishing the existence of obligations and more on their application in contentious proceedings: breach, causation, allocation of responsibility and remedies.
The session will examine what changes after the advisory opinions for interstate litigation, human-rights proceedings, domestic climate cases and negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Questions for discussion:
The session will examine what changes after the advisory opinions for interstate litigation, human-rights proceedings, domestic climate cases and negotiations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Questions for discussion:
- Who can bring a legally determinate climate claim, against whom and before which judicial body?
- How should the adequacy of nationally determined contributions and compliance with due-diligence standards be assessed?
- How can causation and responsibility be addressed where emissions originate from multiple actors and jurisdictions?
- Which forms of cessation, guarantees of non-repetition, compensation and other remedies are realistically available?
- Do judicial clarifications bring international law and climate negotiations closer together or intensify tensions between them?
A final judgment or award rarely reveals the full range of strategic decisions that shape an international dispute. Forum selection, framing of claims and defences, evidence gathering across jurisdictions, expert involvement, interim measures, coordination of parallel proceedings and preparation for enforcement all require choices long before the merits hearing.
The session will bring together practitioners representing States, public bodies, companies and individuals before international courts, arbitral tribunals and foreign domestic courts. Particular attention will be paid to disputes involving Russian parties, where ordinary procedural challenges may be compounded by restrictive measures, difficulties in accessing legal and expert services, payments, evidence and enforcement mechanisms.
Questions for discussion:
The session will bring together practitioners representing States, public bodies, companies and individuals before international courts, arbitral tribunals and foreign domestic courts. Particular attention will be paid to disputes involving Russian parties, where ordinary procedural challenges may be compounded by restrictive measures, difficulties in accessing legal and expert services, payments, evidence and enforcement mechanisms.
Questions for discussion:
- How should counsel choose between an international court, arbitration and domestic proceedings while taking enforceability into account from the outset?
- How is work divided between the client or State authority, domestic and foreign counsel, experts and evidence specialists?
- How can evidence located in several jurisdictions be collected, preserved and presented?
- How should parallel proceedings be coordinated to avoid inconsistent procedural positions?
- How do restrictive measures affect equality of arms, choice of counsel and arbitrators, payments, access to files and enforcement?
- Which decisions about asset tracing, interim measures, recognition and enforcement need to be taken before the end of the proceedings?
The session asks how immunity and inviolability limit the exercise of domestic judicial, administrative and investigative powers, and what explains the different forms that this protection takes. It will distinguish immunity from adjudicative jurisdiction, immunity from measures of constraint and inviolability, and examine how these distinct forms of protection operate in relation to States, international organisations, regional integration institutions and other entities — where useful comparisons can be made, and where their legal bases and functions require them to be kept apart.
One part of the discussion will concern State and central-bank property. It will examine the distinction between administrative freezing, measures of constraint and permanent confiscation, as well as the functional boundary between foreign-exchange reserves and other sovereign assets. The pending cases Bank of Russia v Council (T-150/26) and Hungary v Council (C-186/26), both concerning Regulation (EU) 2025/2600, provide one concrete setting in which some of these distinctions arise. The cases will be used as a point of departure for a broader discussion rather than as the sole subject of the roundtable.
A second part will address the immunities and inviolability of international organisations and regional integration institutions, including Commission v Slovenia (ECB Archives), C-316/19, and the protection of institutional archives and data against domestic investigative measures. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between functional necessity, access to justice and the availability of alternative means of redress.
The ICRC provides a further, distinctive setting. Although organised as an association under Swiss law, it is frequently characterised as an institution sui generis. Its immunities and inviolability are tied to its international mandate, functional necessity, independence and the confidentiality required for humanitarian action and dialogue with parties to armed conflicts.
Questions for discussion:
One part of the discussion will concern State and central-bank property. It will examine the distinction between administrative freezing, measures of constraint and permanent confiscation, as well as the functional boundary between foreign-exchange reserves and other sovereign assets. The pending cases Bank of Russia v Council (T-150/26) and Hungary v Council (C-186/26), both concerning Regulation (EU) 2025/2600, provide one concrete setting in which some of these distinctions arise. The cases will be used as a point of departure for a broader discussion rather than as the sole subject of the roundtable.
A second part will address the immunities and inviolability of international organisations and regional integration institutions, including Commission v Slovenia (ECB Archives), C-316/19, and the protection of institutional archives and data against domestic investigative measures. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between functional necessity, access to justice and the availability of alternative means of redress.
The ICRC provides a further, distinctive setting. Although organised as an association under Swiss law, it is frequently characterised as an institution sui generis. Its immunities and inviolability are tied to its international mandate, functional necessity, independence and the confidentiality required for humanitarian action and dialogue with parties to armed conflicts.
Questions for discussion:
- How do immunity from adjudicative jurisdiction, immunity from measures of constraint and inviolability differ in legal basis, function and effect?
- Where is the line between administrative freezing, measures of constraint and permanent confiscation of central-bank reserves, and can the duration or structure of a formally temporary measure affect its legal character?
- How should foreign-exchange reserves be distinguished from other sovereign assets, including assets held or managed through sovereign wealth funds?
- What do Bank of Russia v Council and Hungary v Council reveal about the interaction between international immunities, EU competences and judicial review?
- What role should the availability of alternative means of redress play in determining the scope of an international organisation’s immunity?
- How should archives and data be treated when they are held by domestic authorities, cloud providers or third parties?
- What distinguishes the functional basis of ICRC immunities and inviolability from the regimes applicable to classic international organisations?
- More generally, to what extent do these different regimes illuminate common features of the international law of immunities, and where do they resist comparison?